I was out with a group of old school buddies some evening and had to excuse myself every hour to go home and check on my cooking. “It’s near midnight!” they chorused. “Can’t that wait ’til tomorrow?”
“You have no idea,” Jenny said. “He’s been at it since yesterday.”
So how to explain that I was preparing… ramen? How to bridge the glaring disconnect between a pack of instant noodle soup you can get at a sari-sari store for less than ₱10, and one whose broth takes 10 hours to boil until the color and consistency of thin cream, with the meat component baked for 4 and the egg marinated for up to 12? And costs 50 times more? Short answer: you don’t. “Oh,” I said, “you know me — wa’y lingaw.”
See? I’m party to reinforcing the impression. That last part is like saying “walang magawa” in Tagalog. But whereas that translates to “I don’t have anything to do,” the Bisaya version says “I’m not having enough fun.” I live for such distinctions — like when I asked the doorman at Tongara Ramen if they meant tonkatsu instead of tonkotsu. He’d assured me everything was as written, which only made me feel all the more stupid, not least since he did not bother to elaborate. Now I wonder if he even knew it was Japanese for pork broth (chicken broth is torigara, I also later learn).
But seriously, is it worth paying ₱500 a bowl for? For the taste alone, yeah. For the time and patience (not to mention ingredients) involved, I say it is not nearly enough. Make no mistake about it: I’m okay with Lucky Me. But anyone who loves ramen owes it to himself to try it the traditional way, if to properly frame such appreciation. Imagine how metaphorically poorer you would be if you only knew pancit Canton from a pack (or lechon paksiw from a can).
Not being a connoisseur, I can’t vouch for the “authenticity” of Tongara’s ramen. Suffice it to say it was good enough (and simple-looking — hah!) to spur me to make my own. Credit also goes to J. Kenji López-Alt for holding my hand all through the process. His takes 24 hours, but at my pace it took three days. While my classmates deliberated which coffee to order, I was busy counting down the minutes to when I should turn over the pork belly in the oven back home. “Who is having an affair with who again?” I would snap out of my reverie to ask from time to time. Mostly I stood up to leave. I missed out on a lot of juicy gossip that night.
Shown here are two variations of the soup. The one at the very top had a broth flavored with miso paste and served with white beech mushrooms, wakame, marinated egg, and bonito flakes. The other was simply seasoned with soy sauce, hon-dashi,, and chili oil, but enriched with slices of braised pork belly. As for the opaque flecks dotting the broth, that’s minced pork fat. Did I say anything about the dish being healthy? Lucky Me sure isn’t.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s past midnight here and I feel a noodle craving coming on…
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